WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Sunday he was ordering new tariffs on all films made outside the United States, claiming Hollywood was being 鈥渄evastated鈥� by a trend of US filmmakers and studios working abroad.
The announcement comes as the White House is coming under mounting criticism over its aggressive trade policies that have seen Trump impose sweeping tariffs on countries around the globe.
鈥淚 am authorizing the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100 percent Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands,鈥� he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Trump鈥檚 post comes after China, which has taken the brunt of the US president鈥檚 combative trade policies with 145 percent tariffs on many goods, said last month it would reduce the number of US films it imported.
鈥淭he Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death. Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States,鈥� Trump wrote Sunday.
鈥淗ollywood, and many other areas within the USA., are being devastated,鈥� he added, claiming this amounted to a national security threat.
The implications for the movie industry 鈥� or how exactly the tariffs would be enacted 鈥� were not immediately clear.
There was also no mention in Trump鈥檚 post of television series 鈥� an increasingly popular and profitable sector of production for the screen.